Eight Years of the Blog + March 2025 Reading Journal

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I don't want to talk about March... I had so much discipline in February, and it all went out the window this month. I started strong, on a whirlwind 3 day trip to New York City and then came back so tired that I let everything fall by the wayside for the rest of the month. I had taken the app timers off my phone for the trip, and I never put them back on, so I had unfettered Instagram and Internet access all month. I spent more of my time scrolling through the r/Broadway thread than I want to admit. I felt a little nauseous when my screen time report popped up with over 7 hours for last week. Doing kind things for my body went right out the window with the phone usage, losing all my discipline from February. Needless to say, the reading aspect of my life also could've gone better. 

The one thing I will defend myself on is that I always struggle to read other fiction while I'm editing my own, and I spent March editing the draft I wrote in February. I've been making myself retype everything to be intentional instead of just skimming through it, and I've made it 50,000 words through that edit. So it's not like I was a completely unproductive lump the entire time. But it's really the nonfiction audiobooks that have held my book count together. The total count comes in at 4 novels (two being French translations randomly that I purchased on the New York trip), with one being a book I'd mostly read in February. That's still a book a week. It's never as bad on paper as it feels in the moment, but I could certainly give more of myself to reading. I think the biggest issue is that I didn't feel very inspired by the books I picked up and took a while to finish them. Mostly because I would read a bit, put it down for days, and only finish it because I forced myself to read 100 or 200 pages in a day. I also picked up and DNF'd a lot. I've been struggling to find books that feel right. A library trip at the end of the month has given me a new stack to work through. I'm currently reading Crush, and while I can't figure out if I like it, I have read 50 pages between yesterday evening and this morning. At least it's moving fast. In total, I finished 12 books. I'm also currently reading a poetry anthology that I guess I'll get into more in April. 

In my general March funk, I also didn't do a fantastic job keeping up this blog. I've posted a review here and there and eventually did get out my bookstore round up from the New York trip that I mostly wrote when I was away. I think that New York was physically exhausting with long days and poor sleep and also an emotional high, which I always struggle with when the days that follow never live up to how shiny these big moments are. I'm glad that this period of freelancing in relative isolation will be over, hopefully for good, in a couple weeks. Though it's also nerve-wracking to returning to living life at a thousand miles an hour fitting in work, summer fun, and my own writing and reading work all together again. But I do much better in every way with time constraints, so hopefully things will look up soon. I spent a while yesterday sitting out by the river enjoying a last sunny day before it gets cold and snowy again. Getting moments like that are making me hopeful and giving me a purpose into putting effort into getting my life back together. 

Speaking of dropping the ball, I never did do anything for the eighth anniversary of this blog, even though I really was looking forward to it. It's not a huge deal, but I love the number eight, and it does amaze me that I've made it this far with the blog. Thank you to everyone who's come along with me, followed me from being a teenager to adulthood. I'm hoping that I'll get past this film of exhaustion soon as it gets warmer and the sun comes out again. But if you're not treating yourself as well as you'd like and are feeling down about it, you're not alone. I hope you find a good book soon. 

I have 2 weeks to myself in April to finish this revision, write some short stories, write poems to read at the poetry reading I'm attending mid-month. And also hopefully read a ton. I also want to catch up on my NetGalley books and the current releases. By peak summer, I want to start moving into reading more classics to prepare for starting my creative writing degree. Hopefully, I'll spend less time on my phone and more in a book again this month. 

Books I Read: 

Common Decency

Fleabag: The Special Edition

Y2K

Razzle Dazzle

Mood Machine

Dear Dickhead

Working on a Song

On The Clock

Everything Was Possible

Careless People

Liquid

Singular Sensation

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